maybe you noticed

I haven't been moved to post for several months now. No reason really, except living the comfortable routine of my Santa Barbara life doesn't move me to spend as much time thinking as Spain. Rather, thinking about important things... I spend a lot of time thinking about things no one wants to hear about: the newspaper, boys, and school, in that order.

I had an English teacher in high school. A teacher I never admitted I liked because the kids used to make fun of her, the teacher that really, more than my mom and anyone else, pushed me into journalism. For that alone, I owe her my happiness. I wasn't critical of her because I always saw a little bit of myself in her... the way she got excited about little things, the way she would try to incorporate inspirational quotes or videos into class, the way she wasn't the most popular teacher but she tried really hard. Now, as I pencil in my post-college career plans, I am becoming more and more interested in a similar path to hers. She was a reporter for awhile before she got her teaching credentials and became a journalism advisor. A brilliant way to try out the daily newspaper world for awhile but getting out before it becomes too fast and stressful.

Now, she's a mess. Or recovering from being a mess, but nonetheless not the lady I once knew. Life can take unfortunate turns.

HoLa

This has been a summer of reunions. Reunions with friends, relatives, people I worked with, most of them physically absent from my life for at least six months. When I imagine these reunions I imagine fireworks and music, wide smiles and double-takes. For the most part, the reentrance of these important people into my life has been very anticlimactic. Like we saw each other yesterday. No readjustment period or awkwardness like with long-lost cousins, just the mandatory "How was Spain?" before starting to make new memories.

My first reunion was with my family at the international terminal of the LAX airport. I was two hours late strolling into the terminal and I had to use a pay phone to locate my family, who had long before moved to the seats to wait with their "Welcome Home" posters and balloons. After my hellish journey home and my delusion from lack of sleep and food, that was my only reunion that wasn't anticlimactic -- it was in fact wonderful because my sisters looked older and taller and no one asked me how Spain was.

Yesterday I ran into two people I haven't seen in over a year. One was outside the grocery store, and we exhanged plesantries while I grinned crazily and marvelled in my head at the changes in both our lives. One passed me on the street and gave me a little wave and a "Hey" like we had kept in touch all along, even though we hadn't. When I caught up with my former roommie in Barcelona in April after nine months, she was sitting on a bench on the corner outside our hostel looking and acting astonishingly the same (and not pregnant). We spent the following five days ripping through the sights in Barcelona, dancing, and talking like "old friends," which I guess we are by now. A good friend showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night my first day back to Santa Barbara and proceeded to pass out on our couch. Another one was sleeping on the couch when I stumbled home late and when I was getting ready for work the next morning; she asked me "Hi, how are you?" as I ate my breakfast.

Now a senior in college, I suppose my peers and I are now well-versed in the art of saying hellos and goodbyes. If I see someone I haven't seen since Greek Myth lecture freshman year, high school, or even elementary school, I smile, say hello and make small talk. Or shake my hair in front of my face, hold my sunglasses and hide. There are still a few important people I haven't yet seen, at least one of which deserves fireworks and music but will probably recieve just a long hug and the biggest smile I can muster. Goodbyes back in December struck me as slightly silly, because there were just as many hellos waiting somewhere down the road. Hellos, unlike goodbyes, are long-awaited but not immediately fulfilled. The first hello may be anticlimactic, but the second and third and forth are that much sweeter, because even though not much changes, six months or more is really a long time to go without seeing someone who remains still a friend.

half what

http://halfwhat.blogspot.com

I'm also a member of this blog, and we just moved. So update your bookmarks.

poker face

Someone on the bus today was playing one of those video poker games with the beeping for the whole twenty minutes it took to get downtown. Whenever I turned around it wasn't readily apparent who it was, so it just kept going and going and going until I thought I would be forced to jump out the window in order to get away from it.

Maybe it was the free McDonald's gourmet coffee this morning, but my attention span is five minutes long this morning and i'm thinking it's the unprovoked agitation I was subjected to on the bus.

lessons

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?"

Business newspaper intern reporting is such that I get assigned a lot of the more cut-and-dry business or people profile stories that require a few interviews and no investigation. I prefer some spice in my life, successfully investigating the more shaky, "watchdog"-type stories without making anyone mad... but I don't get gifts for doing those. Businesses, especially new businesses, really like when newspapers write advocacy articles about them. And today I recieved my first gift for doing one of those. A paperweight with that quotation. I guess there's something to be said for making someone's day with an article, rather than ruining it.

if I were a psych/soc major...

I've been reading Craig's List personals lately, mostly because everyone in the office seems to find them so interesting, and partly because a friend suggested I do. Today I decided to do a men and women comparison. The men seeking women seem to either include a long list about the man and a short list about what he's looking for (beautiful, confident, young, smart, funny...), or something defiant and different that seeks to introduce the guy without actually saying anything about him. The women seeking men are the opposite, as most are ridiculously long lists of characteristics of the "perfect man" created by women who have dated before and want a long-term relationship or a marriage now.

In that respect, it would seem that it's up to the woman to look and pick because the men seem fairly non-picky in just describing themselves. There are also far less personals written by woman than by men, meaning the men expect the women to pick but they're not doing a good job at it. It's a wonder, really, that anyone gets together.

Paso Monica

In my six years of writing articles and editing newspapers, I do not recall having made a glaring factual mistake. I'm sure i've made plenty that I wasn't called on, a couple I was called on that i'm not remembering, and some that were caught before the story went to print; neither reporters nor editors are perfect. My sophomore year in high school I recieved a letter after my very first article was published in the baby beginning journalism paper, a letter that the teacher pretended was bad but was actually good, thanking me for a good job my article.

This morning when I walked into work I was told that I shouldn't go to Santa Maria because i'll be lynched... apparently in my recent article I wrote Santa Monica instead of Santa Maria and Robles instead of Paso Robles. A stupid mistake that no one in the newsroom, including me, caught. Obviously not an oversight in my questioning, but a blaring typo that, in hindsight, seems absolutely impossible. However it got there, whether it was a brain freeze or prompted by alien influence, that's what it read. Granted, in six years I probably won't remember this mistake either, because the involved parties didn't storm the office or wake me up in the middle of the night screaming in my ear, but nevertheless. It's something to think about while I write and edit.

not-so-miserable monday

It's really amazing what an extra half-hour of sleep can do on a hopeless Monday morning. I couldn't sleep last night, tossing and turning and reading for hours, worrying my current or future job would impossibly turn into The Devil Wears Prada and all my dreams would become nightmares. Instead of dragging myself out of bed this morning after the third push of the snooze, I felt I deserved to sleep for another half-hour and went into work 25 minutes later than normal. I found three long and informative voice mails on my machine, several long and informative e-mails in my inbox, and enough writing to keep me occupied the whole day. Now, high afternoon nap time again, i'm wide awake and engaged.

tea break

It's about time that I felt awake and alive this morning, considering it's already 11:30 and i've been awake for four hours and alive for 20 years, 18 months, 11 days. I'm drinking Pomegranate White Tea and the quiet caffeine is entering my body through my stomach and going first for my droopy eyes. Then it's heading down to conquer my flaccid cheeks and my relaxed mouth, my noodle fingers and my lazy brain. It doesn't take much brain or typing power to come up with intern busy work briefs, but it does take a little to keep myself interested and sounding intelligent.

The addicts I talk to (mostly cigarette after my six months in nicotine-infested Europe) say they're more addicted to the routine and the atmosphere that creates the desire to smoke than the actual chemicals. Like sitting around after dinner and having a smoke and a good conversation, like sipping coffee, reading a newspaper, and dragging off a cigarette. For me, I like my caffeinated tea around this time when i'm sitting at my computer at the intern desk in 72-degree air-conditioned air, freezing my butt off and wondering when i'll be hungry enough to take my lunch break.

intelligently incompetant

I astonish myself sometimes when hear the things that come out of my mouth without my prior in-brain planning or consent.

I got a call just now from a man who I contacted via e-mail this morning for an article i'm writing about the CEO Roundtable discussions he organizes in the area. I didn't expect him to get back to me, so I didn't bother writing any questions out or really thouroughly researching the program online as I normally would. Well, he called, and from a blank piece of paper and a blank brain I concocted brilliantly worded questions on the spot, surprising myself at the words that popped into my mouth and out into the telephone. I think the best quality of a journalist is the ability to sound like an expert in any field, or simply the ability to ask stupid questions that are masked into sounding smart. Well, I think I sounded pretty stupid... but perhaps I used enough big words and concepts to trick him into sounding like I really know at least a little something about business in the area, or at least charmed him with my friendliness so it didn't matter. Of course, giving out my e-mail address as intern@newspaper.com I imagine really shatters whatever credibility I had and makes the person i'm speaking to wonder why the article about their super-important program is being handled by an intern.

I scream for myscreen

I currently have no screen on my window, and it's a big window, dirty and ancient with bent black metal frames, offering views of my next-door neighbors and the stunning I.V. coastline. It's a considerably better view than I had out of my cubby hole window in Spain, a view that was monopolized by the mammoth apartment building exactly like mine next door and the neighbors that never closed their windows in the summer heat. In Spain I dealt with the bugs that used to come through the window by shrugging, "It's Spain, and it's a little backward sometimes." Now, back in frontward Santa Barbara, I scratch my bug bites and curse my landlord for not giving the screen guy who came yesterday a work order for my window and for thinking it's ok to leave me screenless for much longer. It's funny the things I expect from the "civilized" U.S. of A., but I forget that the bracket of college students without much money, soon to graduate and have less money, shouldn't expect anything. Especially in the United States that's really only civilized to those who can afford it.

But I guess freedom of speech is pretty important.

It's 2:49 p.m. on my perpetually slow office computer clock

That's high time for a siesta in Spain and i'm tired. I used to complain about siestas all the time because a three-hour break in the normal business day does not leave much room for getting things done... but now that I work 9 'til 5 i've learned that there is ample time to get things done during any one of the long hours before 2:00 and the high mid-afternoon after 2:00 is nothing but sleepy and dragging. But Americans don't know how to rest, thus my newspaper's office is still open, all the cars are still zooming by the streets of downtown Santa Barbara, and I am expected to work. And, being the good, diligent employee I am, I do. But i'm still tired, and I sit here in a highly air-conditioned office in temperate Santa Barbara wondering what it's like to work in hot-as-hell Sevilla.

eww

Yes.

I'm home safely, and now that i'm safely home the horrors of my trip home are slowly being erased. But that doesn't stop me from marveling at the fact that everything that could have gone wrong, did, and I did it all on the three hours of sleep I got in the Barcelona airport.

I arrived at the Seville airport to a blinking red "retrasado" printed next to my flight. Delayed. Well at least I had until 7:30 the next morning to make it to Barç. I checked in and was told my luggage could only be checked through to London and that it was 30 kilos over the weight limit so I would have to pay 400€ to transport it. I got off on that throught a loophole in the system (the luck loophole I suppose), told the woman my luggage needed to be checked to LAX, and set off to wait the extra hour my flight was delayed.

And hour came and went and the airline, being Iberia and being Spanish, didn't bother to tell anyone what was going on. After overhearing talk of technical problems, an announcement moved all of us waiting to the next gate where they were boarding another flight to Barç. After much yelling and confusion in Spanish, they managed to get everyone who didn't have luggage on the flight, which left about 15 of us still waiting. After following an Iberia woman all over the airport like a line of angry ducks we were all checked onto the next SpanAir flight. I was told that my name had been called earlier because my luggage was loaded onto the earlier flight, and that I should ask about it in Barç.

When I got to Barcelona three hours after I was supposed to they of course had no idea what I was talking about with my luggage or the cancelled flight and that it was checked through to LA so that's where it'd be. The Iberia info man was well intentioned, though, and he told me if I was going to stay in the airport overnight I should use my London boarding pass to get to the area by the gates because there are a lot of "ratones" hanging around the main area at night. I had dinner, and hung out by the TVs watching the World Cup and Grey's Anatomy dubbed until I fell asleep.

A couple of hours of sleep later and I was tired but relieved to continue on my way, confident that my trip already had its share of screw ups and it was smooth sailing to LA. I handed my boarding pass to the attendent at the gate and got ready to board my plane to London.

I was asked to step aside and wait while they punched numbers into the computer and made phone calls. They told me that I had been unexplicably dropped from the flight in Seville an hour and a half after I was given my boarding pass and that there was absolutely no more room for me on the flight. No London. No LA. I was sent downstairs. Iberia told me to talk to British Airlines, and British sent me back to Iberia who sent me back to British. I stopped playing their games and the woman at British who understood the problem called Iberia and sent me back over there. No one at Iberia had taken the call and they didn't know what I was talking about, so I was accused of missing my flight until they decided to talk to the British woman in person. After an hour of back and forth I was booked to London on a flight that left in a half hour, and booked to LAXon a flight that arrived six hours later than planned. My luggage, I was told, was checked through to LAX so it would get there.

My flight to London was an hour and a half late in boarding but when we finally landed I had plenty of time to wait in the airport. With a ten hour flight ahead of me and a five-hour layover, I just wanted to GO HOME. My transatlantic was also late in boarding but I was finally on the flight that would take me home.

Of course, as expected, my luggage didn't make it, and I finally stumbled into the arms of my family two hours behind schedule, dirty, exhausted, but amused at the complete and utter chaos that is the airline system. Especially Iberia. Let's not forget that they lost my luggage on the way to Spain as well, and the flight was unbalanced in take off so they sent five people to the back, as if that would make the problem better. Yes, but as with most things, the hell that was my trip home is now a little funny, and i'm enjoying the little comforts of living again in the US. It might be funnier when they find my luggage.

To my lovely loyal travel companions:

I'm on my way home...

A couple suitcases to pack, a couple goodbyes to say, and i'll be on my way.

Despite the long, gentle slope I've walked in preparation for my departure (the past two weeks since i've been back from my trip or the past six months, however you want to think about it) it feels abrupt. Like I haven't enjoyed myself enough yet, like I still can't say "euro" and therefore haven't mastered bilinguity, like I still haven't been to Ronda and Merida and Portugal even though I wanted to go... of course there will always been things left undone, which I guess gives me all the more reason to return. Coming home, of course, facilitates a return, finishing my major and preparing myself to get a job and make money so I have that option. In any case, after the long preparation i'm looking foward to leaving already and getting my summer going!

I'm also looking foward to seeing most of you soon! And of course, my travels don't end here. Reimmersing myself back into American culture, I can imagine, will be an adventure in itself. Until then... un besito.

(sunny side down)

I was sitting in a café this morning at a table along the wall, sipping a café con leche, writing furiously, minding my own business in general, when a man who was not a waiter approached my table. He asked if I spoke English, and then he asked if I wanted to do an intercambio (in which he speaks English and I speak Spanish), to which I responded that I’m going back to my country in a few days. Adios.

I am continually astonished by the nerve European men have to just go up and talk to that girl across the room they’ve been staring at. In a normal daytime situation, American men will more often than not just walk away. The European man will approach and come up with something stupid to talk about in order to score a date or a number. Angela and I were minding our own business on a bench by the duomo in Florence when an Italian man who had been sitting nearby staring at us finally got up the guts to approach and ask us if we spoke Italian. We obviously didn’t, and he barely spoke English, but he proceeded to stand there for a full 15 minutes awkwardly trying to construct the “Do you want to go out to dinner with me?” question with all the wrong words in English, then Italian, then standing there saying “Mamamia, Como si dicce…” Angela and I were again minding our own business, eating dinner on the ferry to Greece when a pair of crafty truck-driving Greeks who just happened to be sitting next to us had the waiter pour us glasses of wine that we didn’t want, and gave us half of their dinner to accompany it, which we also didn’t want. A clown on drugs came up to Anglea when we were window shopping and eating McDonald’s ice cream cones in Athens and told her she had “The most beautiful eyes,” then going on to talk awkwardly about the disappearing rainforests until he saw it was time to make his exit, saying, “I’ll miss your eyes.”

I was warned about the “piropos” before I came to Seville, a custom among Spanish men (and it seems among European men in general) to yell or whistle at women when they’re walking along the street. I can handle that, like the flea-market in Greece or Halloween in I.V., look down, keep walking, and pretend you can’t hear. But then there’ve been times when I’ve been walking and I’ll hear some man muttering something in Spanish under his breath. It happened quite often in Barcelona, where I’d translate for Angela, “Oh, that man thinks we’re pretty.” It happened last week as I was walking on the street and I heard, “Hey, girl, wait and I’ll accompany you.” And then there are the all-too-frequent “Hi’s” and “How are you’s” that are more demeaning than they are friendly and some of the other English words that men pick up from songs and movies that they shouldn’t be saying.

It’s a distinct culture difference, I think, between Europe and the U.S., that plays off the power roles and differences that still exist between males and females, not just in Europe but everywhere. Being the foreigner that I am and will always be, I still don’t know whether European men direct their attentions at only foreigners or at women of their own country as well. In any case, foreign girls are easy bait, like c/ Betis along the river where swarms of foreign girls go on the weekends dressed in their impossibly short skirts and halter tops to be yelled at by all the moped-riding Spaniards with gelled mullets and white pants who congregate there to do the yelling.

Of course, as with every generalization, there are exceptions, and I would like to acknowledge that there are many European men I know who are very nice and respectful. Indeed, I ended up with a very nice and respectful American man right off the bat that did his best to fend off the cunning Spaniards who would surround our group of girls at clubs and try to dance with us. Well it’s been interesting to say the least, and I’ll probably get back to the U.S. and find that the nice, respectful American men I’m talking about have found their huevos since I’ve been gone… so I’ll keep my pepper spray in my purse and my eyes down, willing myself invisible. I have quite a lot experience at that already.


On a lighter note, I realize I have forgotten to comment on Greek male fashion. You see, man purses are big in Europe, but in Greece (and Spain and Italy, but not as much), the fanny pack is at its height. Teenagers, old men, big, small, the fanny pack is The Definition of cool. It's pretty fantastic.

Athina

(photo tech problems continue.)

Leave tourist-central, romance-language Italy, enter the world of anything goes.

There are a number of directions I could go with this post and none of them would probably give you a very good impression of Greece, Greeks, or Athens. Indeed, if I count and recount experiences, most of them will end up being or sounding negative. But looking back on it, an inordinate number of weird things happened to us in Greece or enroute and I can’t believe that that’s the norm. Aristotle, Sophocles, and Plato were Greeks for heaven’s sake, as were Zeus, Athena, and Dionysus. After everything, I still do hold Greece in high esteem, but it definitely deserves another look. I am willing to concede that some people and places fail at first impressions.

We got off the double-decker bus we took from Patras to Athens and had ni puta idea where we were, nor in which direction was our hostel. After an unsuccessful attempt at parking it and calling the hostel or finding the station on our teeny Let’s Go map, we ruled out walking because the area didn’t seem all that happening and the bus station itself was a dark, dirty collection of small, rundown store fronts and signs written in Greek. We directed ourselves to the ticket office and got chicken scrawl, questionably English directions on a little white piece of paper from the woman at the information window. Ok, bus number 50-something. A little disoriented with the language and luggage we got on bus number 50-something and Angela tried to hand the driver money. He started growling and pointing and opened the doors to eject us off the bus. We bought two tickets from the ticket window and got on the next one. No idea where to get off, we got off with everyone else at the last stop, because by doing a little letter matching between the posted route and our directions, it seemed like we were going the right direction.

We got off the bus and found that we still had no idea where we were and there were a lot of people hanging around. Like murienda time in Sevilla when everyone’s off work and the cafes and shops are bustling. We began to make our way down the street, past the people, looking for the metro stop our directions said should exist; two young, pretty girls with luggage, as if we didn’t stick out like sore thumbs already. We stopped at a hotel and got a map and real directions to Omonia, the nearest metro. Our map took us to a little plaza with crowded aisles and a dingy flea market of sorts on the ground. I clutched my purse to my chest, hid the map, and plunged in after Anglea, keeping my eyes on her and my head down. Greek. Everything in Greek, a language completely foreign and unrecognizable to my ears. Out of the corner of my eye I could feel the male stares and hear the “Hi”s and “How are you”s peppered in with a whole lot of gibberish. As I would do in Spain, I pushed on, my eyes down, my face deliberately not registering the English, not the stares, nor my discomfort. Keep walking. Don’t look back, as if not looking would make my skin and hair a little Mediterranean darker and my luggage disappear. As if it’s possible not to look terrified when I’ve never been more lost and uncomfortable and extranjera in my life. We cleared the crowd and entered the next Best Western we saw, this time getting real English directions and a real map. These streets were deserted but friendly, with red slippery tiling like in Seville and the weak setting sun shining, clean and tranquil. We didn’t leave the vicinity of our hotel until the next morning when the sun was already good and up and we had slept enough to almost forget about our welcome to Athens.

Athens is home to the Acropolis, it has the Parthenon, and it has the Agora, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and the ancient statues at the National Archaeological Museum. All very ancient, amazing sights with so much history behind them, but after Rome’s ruins… well it’s hard to beat Rome. The Greek ruins aren’t much older than the Roman ruins but they’re considerably more “ruined.” The Acropolis, however, did seem pretty intact, but maybe that’s just thanks to the scaffolding that was all over the place. Impressive, yes, but even though it’s built on a rock overlooking the whole city and the ocean, it can’t beat the Colosseum. It did, however, beat the Colosseum in price, because we accidentally went on a free day. The only time, I think, we accidentally stumbled into anything good. The archeological museum is probably the funnest museum I’ve ever been to, besides the Children’s Museum in Las Vegas or was it Denver with the play supermarket. Its contents are super old, they’re not behind glass, there’s nothing super famous so it’s not as stressful as the major art museums, and photography is allowed. Taking photos is such a good way to internalize and appreciate the shapes and intricacies of sculpture. But the most memorable sight was the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Parliament building... the whole process was so ridiculous that it was hilarious and amazing at the same time.

Greece has its beauty more than anything else. The bus ride between Patras and Athens was stunning, and because Greece is so uniquely shaped, the road was by the Aegean Sea for half the trip, and for the other half, the Mediterranean. I couldn’t believe the view, the deep deep blue ocean, the green green hills, even the ferry ride off the coast of Greece, with islands in every direction. I’m going to be bold and say it was infinitely more beautiful than even the ride between Ventura and Santa Barbara; those oil platforms do get in the way. And the Oregon Coast and Northern California’s coast, these are all incredible beautiful places, but there’s just something about the air in Greece that make the colors just that much more brilliant. Maybe it’s the Mediterranean heat. You will see in our photos of the Acropolis that it wasn’t a very nice day, but walking around on that cloudy day we just couldn’t believe the heat. It was a creeping heat, a still heat, a heat that surrounds your body until your skin screams for a breath. But what am I talking about; I live in Sevilla, now that’s heat. Greece also has its salads. Angela and I probably ate 10 blocks of feta cheese between the two of us that week, with all the salads we ate. Olives, tomato wedges, cucumber, red onion, a big block of feta, with olive oil, vinegar, and spices. The best gyros we ate were actually on the boat, and we cried a little on the way back when the worker informed us that the machine was broken. Some nice Canadians we met escorted us to a gyro place one night for dinner because we were scared to go alone, and those were pretty amazing too, but I still kind of like to know exactly what kind of meat I’m eating. I also would like to give Athens credit for having the nicest metros I’ve ever been on. In a city that diverse, the metros could have been the creepiest most disgusting, graffiti-infested tunnels in the world. On the contrary they were right up there with Washington D.C., and the way the tickets worked it wasn't really necessary to pay.

Even so, I will spare you the dozen crazy, creepy stories we have about Greek people or people that speak English in Greece and leave you with a photo that explains the ferry in a nutshell. The ferry was like a mini cruise ship except the pool and the disco were broken, and instead of a bed, we had an airplane seat. The most restful two nights I’ve ever spent, clutching my purse, bundled in every warm piece of clothing I brought, wearing sunglasses and a scarf on my head to counteract the light, headphones to counteract the noise, trying to get around the armrests and the seats that didn’t recline all the way to… sleep…

In spite of everything, Greece, Italy, it was all an adventure. A splendid once-in-a-lifetime adventure that, more than pages and pages of words and pictures, I have hundreds and hundreds of memories and a very good friend with which to share them. And for that, I am thankful.

Vaticano

The Vatican made me sick.

Alright, maybe it was the muffin I ate for breakfast, but after waiting in this line for two hours to enter the Vatican Museum:


(Incidentally this is the wall that Tom Cruise scaled in MI3, and the sign that you can’t quite read says Vatican Museum with an arrow to the right.--->) I felt sick enough upon finally getting inside that we had to sit another two by the bathroom and so I could get rid of all the muffin and Rome tap water in my stomach. After that stellar entrance to the museum I proceeded to spill hot tea on myself in the cafeteria. Well, from the family I come from, a vacation just wouldn’t be complete without incidents like that.

We had originally planned on doing the entire Vatican in one day, but because we like to see things in a relaxed manner (or lazy, whatever you want to call it), we spent almost a whole day at St. Peter’s Basilica, so we had to return the next day to fit the museum in. We had planned on getting to the museum before it opened like we did in Florence to minimize waiting time, but after eating the muffin and catching the over-crowded metro we were about ten minutes too late and instead ended up arriving at the worst time ever, right after they’d let it reach capacity. I’m trying to capitalize on our mistakes here, because I hear those sell better, and as you might’ve gathered by now, the vacation was pretty much perfect and problem-free.



We entered the basilica not really knowing what to expect, and by the second glass coffin with a preserved cadaver, we found it to be far beyond our comprehension. We bought an audio guide. The wax-preserved cadavers turned out to be ex-popes awaiting sanctification, but unfortunately the audio guide said very little about this rarity, something I didn’t even know existed before I read “La santa.” (Márquez’ story is slightly more magical realistic with the preserved cadaver being that of a little girl who had died and been buried eleven years earlier). Apparently there’s a spooky little church in Florence that also has a preserved cadaver that we didn’t get to see due to reasons already stated.

Michelangelo was all over the place, beginning with his famous Pietá, that is, Mary with Jesus’ body in her lap. Unfortunately the statue is small, and it’s hidden way back in a corner behind bulletproof glass because an “axe-wielding fiend” (so says my Let’s Go) actually succeeded in breaking Christ’s nose and Mary’s hand way back when in 1972. The altar is a magnificent monstrosity of wood and bronze, apparently some of which is taken from Roman ruins. There is a bit of discrepancy on the exact location, but our audio guide and an annoying umbrella-wielding English tour guide said the Vatican also houses a piece of Jesus’ cross. Indeed, the basilica itself is said to be built on St. Peter’s tomb, and the obelisk in the middle of the square is the site of his crucifixion.

All this New Testament stuff is interesting, but the highlight of the day, besides eating peaches just outside the front door of the basilica and watching the Swiss Guard, was climbing to the top of the dome. There were a hell of a lot of stairs, and the Italians that said there were no stairs in Rome while we were in line to continue climbing the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona were lying… Regardless, we got to walk around the dome on the inside and see the artwork and mosaics up close, as well as look down upon the wooden altar and the people below. We then continued climbing in the space between the inside and outside domes (Michelangelo’s design), which was a weird dizzying sensation, because we were walking on a flat walkway, but the walls were curving inward. The view from the top was priceless (alright, 4€), and we got our coveted photos of the entire plaza and the unfinished backs of the saints that line the top of the church. Of course, there was a gift shop run by nuns on the lower roof. We ate more pistachios, but decided it was not okay to deface St. Peter’s roof with the shells. I think the Swiss Guards speak for themselves.





And finally, the museum (after two hours of reading/skimming all this text). Considering my condition, we decided to go straight to the Sistine Chapel and then go from there. Unfortunately, that is not easily done because the road to the Sistine Chapel pretty much encompasses the entire museum, halls and halls of religious art and thousands and thousands of people waiting to see the chapel. The Sistine itself doesn’t allow photos or talking or sitting on the stairs, but we took good standing, visual advantage of Michelangelo’s masterpiece that is the ceiling and the walls. And then we took good standing, visual advantage again when, after I spilled tea on myself, we realized we missed the Raphael rooms and we had to go back through the whole museum again. It’s unfortunate, but after seeing all these famous, original works of art and dealing with the amount of people that also want to see them, I think it’s almost better and easier to appreciate them by just looking in a book. It is rather exciting to be able to say, “I saw the Sistine Chapel, the School of Athens, the Birth of Venus, and the Pietá in Italy,” but I still won’t really begin to understand them or appreciate them until I type them into Google and stare at them for awhile in the comfort of my own home. Maybe that’s why I study literature. I am not talking about David.

Roma

Rome is for the hardcore sightseer. Every traveler we talked to stayed for a couple days, went to bed early, got up early, pumped out the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, St. Peter’s, the Vatican museum/Sistine Chapel, the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, maybe the Pantheon, some gelato, some other plazas or fountains, the Roman Holiday sights, and left. We did the same. In our trip rankings Rome turned out to be our favorite city, with our favorite sights, the best food and gelato, and it was the least creepy.

It’s actually amazing the multitude and diversity of famous sights in Rome, ranging from the oldest of the old Roman ruins, to the Catholic Jerusalem, to some of the hippest and most expensive high fashion in Europe. Angela and I sat around a map and my Let’s Go the first night, reading about the sights and circling everything we wanted to do on the map. We circled pretty much everything. In light of the constant walking and seeing we did in Rome, it didn’t even matter that our hostel was at the bottom of our favorite hostel list and we had to take glacial runoff showers the first two days and deal with the rancid smell of mold in the bathroom and the smelly, loud Australians and unhappy couples who were also staying in our room (they were all actually very nice, though).

Without knowing it we decided to forgo seeing the Pope on Wednesday at 10:30 and instead went straight to the Colosseum. I think what is most amazing about Rome (and most old European cities for that matter) is that the old is mixed in with the new, the modern Romans live on top of and along with the historical Romans, ruins from BC coexist with newfangled things like cars, asphalt-paved streets, and high-rise buildings. Gabriel García Márquez says it best in his story “La santa/The saint” about his/the narrator’s return to Rome 22 years after he first saw it: “Pues la Roma de nuestras nostalgias era ya otra Roma antigua dentro de la Antigua Roma de los Césares.” Translated: “So the Rome we remembered so fondly was already an ancient Rome, preserved with the Ancient Rome of the time of César.” (Of course the brilliance and simplicity of this sentence in Spanish cannot be translated into English, not by me not by anyone, but I’m a recent graduate of a translation class and, well, I try.)

The Colosseum is particularly amazing because it is, well, completely colossal. We found it without trouble, by literally walking down the street from our hostel and turning our heads to the left. And there it was, a remnant from 80 AD just chilling there with cars zooming past on all sides and apartment buildings across the street. Though it’s pretty much intact, the bleachers are gone, and once inside it’s hard to visualize exactly what it would be like to be one of the 70,000 spectators there to watch the day’s bloody events (that’s what Gladiator’s for, right?). Along with the ridiculous (that seems to be a trend) 9€ we paid to enter; we had access to the few informational signs. And it sounds so idiotic to me, but like all buildings, the Colosseum had a lifespan and when it was abandoned the people reused pieces of its substantial amount of building material to build new things… I guess we do it now sometimes with old buildings, but imagine the Colosseum defunct, left to rot, be buried, and disassembled. And now they charge thousands of tourists a fortune to enter each day.



Arguably even more amazing than the Colosseum was the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill right next door. This is BC stuff, seriously old and in ruins, but completely amazing. They’re still excavating this whole area too, a work in progress, a whole city buried by layers and layers of sand. Truth be told, Anglea and I were expecting Caesar’s Palace, but what we found was considerably more impressive: buildings, columns, Romulean huts (like Star Trek), the oldest street in Rome. Most of it appears to be relatively unrestored, so it feels more authentic, each piece of marble touched by ancient Roman hands. I don’t know how I feel about restoration. The Parthenon in Athens is under restoration and the scaffolding certainly makes for ugly photos. It depends what one thinks is amazing about seeing old things: the fact that they’re old and partially still around, or the fact that ancient people built amazing things, in which case it would be okay to restore them to their original state. Even though ancient people would probably be sad to see their city in ruins like it is, they might be even sadder to see that it’s been rebuilt, slightly erroneously, and touched all over by modern hands and machines. Do we have to control everything? Obviously more impressive in real life than in photos and certainly in my description, the Roman Forum with its Corinthian columns, which I particularly like, beats David hands and sling shot down. Michelangelo is contemporary in comparison. Angela and I sat for a long time next to what we thought was the senate house, eating pistachios, defacing the forum with their shells, marveling at the old ruined marble we were sitting on, and listening to German and French speaking tourists. Fabulous.




We went on to discover more ruins, the Fori Imperiali, still being excavated and located right across a big road from the Forum. The contemporary Roman government building is right there too, and the way the elevation is, it appears to be on the top of a hill, a huge, white marble building with columns, overlooking the city and dwarfing the ruins right next to it. (This was really our most productive day EVER). Then we made our way to the Trevi Fountain, which though beautiful, had far too many tourists, vendors, and possible pick-pockets for it to be enjoyable. The Spanish Steps were just a short walk away, and well, not deserving of their reputation. Attempted pictures failed because of the amount of people sitting on them, and the building at the top had scaffolding. Coming right out the bottom, was of course, the high fashion, and though it was interesting to see all of the expensive stores, we would never dream of actually entering them.


The other days were mixed in with the Vatican, which is another city and another post in itself. Most memorably, we stood on Corso and watched a truly magnificent violin player and the confusion surrounding a huge and possibly special bird that had landed right there in the street in front of her. We attempted to see an Egyptian obelisk stolen from a pharaoh, but it was under restoration. The Fountain of Four Rivers was beautiful when we finally found it, and there was a guy there pretending to be Charlie Chaplin who kept messing around with the passersby. We sat on the steps of the Pantheon, spitting cherry pits, eating olive oil potato chips (only in Europe), and watching a precious little Italian girl run around while her grandfather tried to keep track of her. European kids are 100 times cuter than American ones, because they are either dressed like their siblings or in cute little designer clothes. It’s amazing the control mothers have over wardrobe; I saw a little boy yesterday, too old to be dressed by his mother, who was wearing tight yellow shorts with pink butterflies and flowers, a pink polo shirt, and jellies. The Pantheon was pretty cool with its dome, and it was free, and old, but it was also taken over by the Catholic Church which slightly ruined its authenticity, just like everything in Spain. We ate the most delicious gelato. And I finally, finally, on our last day in Italy, ordered the right kind. Angela showed me up all vacation with her amazing, rich chocolaty flavors; I always got the fruity flavors and then regretted it after trying hers. Maybe when I return to Rome I’ll have the same nostalgia as García Márquez about when I was there in June 2006. For now, it was pretty much the most amazing manmade place I’ve ever been.

Firenze

If Venice was charming and restful, then I would have to call Florence a disaster. Part of the problem was our timing: arrive late Saturday due to lack of space on trains from Venice and leave Tuesday. Student travelers sometimes like to stay out late on Saturday nights if they find the right company, and if they do, then Sunday is basically useless. No matter because everything’s closed on Sunday, and what’s not closed on Sunday is closed on Monday. All of this being true, Angela and I jammed the Uffizi and the Academia (Michelangelo’s David) into Tuesday morning before we took the train to Rome, making the other days pretty much big disasters in comparison.

We arrived at our hostel Saturday evening after walking a grueling ten blocks from the train station with 12.5 kilos on my back and Angela pulling a rolly suitcase with a broken wheel… we found the city to be a city and not nearly as beautiful as everyone said and we finally found the hostel with a little sign that said “Call when you arrive.” Travelers don’t generally have reliable access to phones. In my frustration I yelled into the building intercom “Call you? How are we supposed to call you, coño?” (coño is a rude word I have picked up due to its common use in Spain and it will not be translated or repeated). We were buzzed in. The man that runs Emerald Fields was not, in fact, a coño, but a cool Italian with a cool hostel. He went over Florence’s geography and highlights with each traveler in his broken English before inviting those hanging around to a bar or out to dinner. A small, friendly, clean, homey, cheap hostel really can be the key to a city, because though Let’s Go can give food and bar advice, the best advice comes from friendly, English-speaking locals and the best fun is found in the company of a random assortment of English-speaking travelers, other locals, and of course Angela.

We spent Sunday in silly fatigue, deciding to forgo the Academia and the Uffizi because the lines were too long, instead hiking to the other side of the river and up to Piazzale Michelangelo where we sat admiring the view of the city and, of course, David’s bottom half. They’re really ridiculous about that. Italians apparently really like their body parts.



We sat outside San Croce church for awhile, thinking 6€ was defiantly not worth it to enter. We wandered around for hours trying to find a restaurant that was recommended both by our hostel roommates and my guidebook, but went somewhere else when we were convinced that it didn’t exist and it wasn’t open on Sundays. We marveled at the thousands of bottles of red wine and couple bottles of absenthe in a wine bar, and stood outside of Dante’s house cursing Mondays. We were ripped off on gelato, iced tea, and breakfast, but were actually quite successful on purchases at the flea market. We admired the gold doors and the beautiful duomo inside and out and were kicked off the stairs as we sat admiring it some more. We actually saw the synagogue, the most ornate and beautiful and high security I have ever seen. We also eventually found the restaurant we were looking for on Monday, but the food was mediocre and one of the waiters was being creepy.

Alright, maybe it wasn’t as idle as it seemed at the time. I wish I knew more about art and didn’t have to ask Angela every five minutes, “Is this famous?” at the Uffizi. But we did see a few pieces I recognized, and a really cool exhibit about Leonardo DaVinci, and we didn’t have to wait in line because we were serious and got up at seven in order to be there before it opened. We did have to wait in line for two long hours and pay too much to see David, but the Academia did turn out to be, according to our official trip rankings, first on our list of favorite museums. David is David, I mean, we’ve all seen him. But to see the original statue in person, its SIZE, its perfect human detail, an experience I really can’t quite recount or repeat. Truly amazing, breath-taking, awe-inspiring… and worth the time and money to circle the statue for half hour, head up, mouth open, trying to comprehend how in the world Michelangelo took a block of marble and sculpted it into a living, breathing human being. We went out with a bang.

more than you ever wanted to know (Venezia)

As the true American west coast twenty first century girls we are, while in Venice, Italy, Angela and I kept repeating “This is just like the Venetian!” And though there is no comparison for the blue-green ocean, the stark contrast between the basilica and the Doge’s palace in St. Marc’s Square, the amount of pigeons, and the hundreds of precious streets and canals off the beaten tourist’s path that capture the beauty and Italian charm of the city… Well, as terrible and blasphemous as it sounds, but for the contentment of my jealous readers, the real thing does look a lot like the Venetian in Las Vegas.



I guess this thought comforts me, knowing I can at least make it to Italy again in representation, because after living in a foreign city for six months (well, five and a half by now), it’s impossible to go to a new city, a beautiful city filled with culture and charm, and be content with being a tourist. I’m still a tourist in a sense in Seville, but my señora says I’m half Spanish because she’s my Spanish mother so I’ll go with that. I have seen so much more of Seville than I will ever be able to see in Venice in the 65 hours I’m here, at least 25 of which are designated for sleeping. We try though. While Vegas has a good representation of Venice, there’s no way to recreate the little things like the largest oil painting in the world (Paradise, Tintoretto, Doge’s palace), trying to speak Italian with my Spanish to Italian translation/pronunciation guide, the man playing wine glasses on a forgotten street (yes, like Miss Congeniality), the look on kids’ faces when they are attacked by pigeons in St. Marc’s Square, the gondola men, the taste of a fresh-out-of-the-oven slice of pizza margarita for 1.50€ as we’re winding through the darkening streets trying to find the bus station… I’m into lists today because even though we didn’t scratch the surface in 40 hours, we did quite a bit.



That’s the marvelous thing about student tourists, because we’re on a budget but not on a schedule and we like to learn. It’s okay to get on the wrong bus in Venice Mestre because we have nowhere to be, there are no protests to eating gelato before lunch at four in the afternoon, sitting for a half hour watching David’s bottom half flap in the wind, and skipping the art museums because we’re going to see more than enough of that in Florence. I guess the main idea of being a tourist is to take what one can from a city — what experiences, what pictures, what sights — and run with them. If I lived in every city in Europe I found interesting for at least a year, in 20 I’d be 40, unmarried, bankrupt, and an extreme mess of languages and cultures. Though an interesting experiment, not really where I see myself. So I do what I can while I’m here now and when I’m back in Santa Barbara scoffing at the Italian food on State Street, the cars, and the wide width of the streets, or in Las Vegas trying to actually find the Venetian charm at the Venetian, I’ll know that I did enough — at least for now.

I realize that I haven’t actually yet said anything of substance about Venice.

By the tail end of our second and last day there we had pretty much exhausted all the touristy things that could be done in Venice, so we were wandering without direction, waiting until it was dark enough for us to experience Venice at night. We came upon a plaza with a leaning tower in the distance (because Venice is sinking), and since we didn’t make it to Pisa this trip, we took advantage of the fun and picture opportunity to the laughs and strange looks of the passersby. We decided to get closer to the tower, so we crossed the canal and walked with our eyes to the sky until we ran into another plaza with a crowd of people and a group of musicians singing opera songs. It was a fun and lively show, the kind that would never exist in the States because most operas are in Italian and most people don’t have the time or the passion to sit on the street and play (that’s a bold statement, but I think it would be fair to say that I’ve seen more quality street performers in Europe than I’ve seen in the U.S.). Once we had clapped our enjoyment sufficiently we followed a group of older Italians to a closer view of the tower. Upon seeing us taking photos of the tower the Italians started chattering about how their leaning tower is better than Pisa and we smiled and nodded at the rest because though Spanish and French are similar, it’s impossible to catch everything in Italian when you haven’t actually studied the language.



In an effort to get more of a multi-cultural view of the city and Europe in general we also went to visit the Synagogue and Jewish museum. The old Jewish ghetto of Venice is one of the oldest in Europe and looks like a ghetto should with small tunnels through which to enter and skinny streets. Like most things we look for, we had trouble finding the synagogue and when we finally found it we were afraid to go inside because there were a crowd of people outside. So we instead browsed through a used book store that sold mostly English language books and approached the synagogue a bit later. A man outside addressed us in English and told us that the temple was closed that day because it was Friday, of course, but we were invited to come back for Shabbat services later that night. We didn’t return because we didn’t have acceptable clothing, but instead we continued on the “yellow brick road” of crowds, touristy shops, and 1€ public WCs.


Arguably the best Italian food we had while in Italy was our first night at a little restaurant in Venice Mestre. We ordered in Italian with the help of my Italian conversation guide and had a lovely romantic meal of a pannini, a pizza Capricciosa, and acqua naturale. When we got the check everything didn’t appear as cheap as it had appeared on the menu, so we tried to communicate to the waiter that we were being overcharged. He claimed he didn’t speak English even though he did and after trying to find language barrier answers in my Italian/Spanish guide and being told by an English-speaking couple at the table next to us who thought we were trying to speak Spanish that Spanish isn’t the same as Italian (duh), we paid the extra 6€ and ran, never again to return to a sit-down restaurant in Venice. Indeed, never again to have a similar experience. I still don’t understand why every European country insists on speaking its own distinct language. I would love to learn Italian, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, and Mandarin but the language center in my brain doesn’t have the capacity for me to maintain flawless English and Spanish and develop the others without making a complete mess of everything. I have enough trouble with two. And they all really start to sound the same after awhile. The ferry boat to Greece had five official languages for the announcements, Greek, English, Italian, German, and French, and I swear I could understand bits and pieces of all of them. Or maybe that’s just the self-fulfillment prophesy.

Anyway. De todas maneras. Alora. I think I’ll work on Italian next.

We had good wine everywhere, but I haven’t yet developed a taste for red wine so I really can’t taste the difference between Italian wine and Spanish wine except that it’s a bit more expensive in Italy. I could taste the difference in Greek wine because it was super red and strong, but I guess it has to be if it’s what Dionysus drinks.


I still haven’t really said anything of substance about Venice. It was our second favorite city out of the five we’ve visited together and compared to some of the ripping off and creepiness we came across in other cities, our visit was relatively innocent, safe, carefree, and uneventful. There are far too many tourists, pigeons, and gondolas in Venice, but if you don’t look at your map and wander around seeing what you can see, it really is very charming and refreshingly small.

read the ending first

In the last two days I have taken almost every form of transportation available to man. In order, beginning Thursday afternoon: Train. Ferry. Train. Bus. Bus. Taxi. Plane. Bus. I think í'm missing a moped, and maybe a bike, and a helocopter, but that's about it. When I think back to all those connections I had to make, it's a wonder that i'm here in Seville again safe and sound. Last night at 9:00 I had no idea how I was going to make it to the airport in the morning, but this morning at 5:05 I was waiting on the street for my taxi. Today at 5:00 in the afternoon i'm tired... but i'm home.

Home?

I called my señora when I was in final approach to the apartment and she called me cariño and asked if I was ok and said she'd be waiting. When I arrived un cuarto de hora later sweating from the walk (but not the heat -- we're having a one-day cold spell) and the weight of my bag of dirty clothes she recieved me with open arms and multiple kisses on each cheek. After not speaking Spanish for two weeks except when I wanted to pretend I was speaking Italian and when I was talking to the old Spanish truck drivers on the ferry, I really did slip back into it and we were talking about celebrities and current events like old times.

And though it seemed like before I left that I would have a lot of time when I returned, now that i'm actually here it's really short. I can smell California, I can see it on my calendar in about two weeks time. I forget how little time there is in Spanish days to do anything, between waking up late, lunch, siesta, the heat, and dinner, there are really only a couple good hours in the day.

Leaving one home and going to another, leaving the other home and going to still another; I've gotten to be a pro at leaving. If it weren't for the heat, well I don't think I would mind staying. But it will be nice to go home home home, I just hope once i'm there I don't forget Sevilla.

It's about time.

It is true, my trip is almost over and I have not yet posted. Truth be told, internet access and interest in recounting has been low. HOWEVER, I will leave you with this photo as I begin my journey home to Seville...


That's me and Angela. The first day, in Venice, on a bridge overlooking the Grand Canal. Obviously. I was going to post an infinitely more exciting photo of Ang in a tan shirt actually blending into the Parthenon in Athens, but it's still on my camera. Indeed, there's also a fabulous one of me falling in love with a statue. But alas.

(Photos and stories to follow. I promise.)

:-)

Join me as I leave Spain for a couple weeks and begin my journey through Italy and Greece...

different names for the same thing

I just finished my first final exam at the Universidad de Sevilla, for my Latin American theater class. It was intense.

At first glance, it seems just like a lit class at UCSB because the final is three hours, and students are given a couple sheets of paper and a couple essay questions. Only here, it's worth the entire grade for the class. After three hours (yes I used the whole time) of writing in Spanish, i'm both exhausted of thinking in Spanish and acustomed to it, so English words aren't coming easily. After a semester long class, three open-ended essay questions are an anticlimactic and stressful way to determine our grade. I'm not a fan. Though the professor said after he read us the questions that the exam was really easy, I think I would've preferred something more directed, because I had four sheets of paper, three hours, and no idea what he wanted.

Vamos a ver...

toros y sangre

I’ve done about everything Spanish there is to be done in Spain by now, everything except the most stereotypically Spanish of all: a bullfight. Bullfights, like flamenco, fans, and Feria are a remnant of the old world, a subject of hot moral debate in modern times, and a practice that many Spaniards, including my señora, don’t support. In fact, Cataluñya, the north-east province that is home to Barcelona, is trying to ban bullfighting. Of course, they’re also trying to separate from Spain and use their native language calalán instead of castellano, what better way than to reject a Spanish tradition.

I had to go to a bullfight. I don’t condone the killing or torturing of bulls, horses, or the mauling of people in the bullring, but I had to go see it. From a moral standpoint, it was actually an interesting study in spectator sociology, because in the face of a 1,000 pound bull on the loose, the audience sympathizes with their fellow humans in the bullring, making it easier and almost a relief to see the bull finally die. I tried not to think about the moral implications of this, because whether or not I paid 10€ to sit in the sun at La Real Maestranza yesterday, six bulls would have died and the crowd would have cheered.


I ended up at a novillada or novice bullfight because the real corrida season is pretty much over. It was all the same to me because it was cheaper, less crowded, and a more than adequate taste of the bull aspect of Spanish culture. At almost every fight there are three toreros (or bullfighting novices in my case), and six bulls. The basic organization of the killing of each bull is the same, with the torero as boss and all of his little helpers running around doing their part. The bull is let out of the gate and he runs into the bullring to a chorus of “wows” from the audience and a song from the band. Novillada bulls are supposedly smaller than the real bulls used, but they are still huge, black, and fast, with big horns. All of the little helpers and the matador are out on the dirt with pink capes, running the bull around the ring to see what it’s like. Some of them were fast, some were stupid, and some were mad; the torero’s technique later depends, in part, on the bull’s mood and, in part, on how stupid, brave, or well-practiced the torero is. After they run him around and antagonize him a little bit, they parade a horse and rider with a spear onto the field. The horse is blindfolded, wearing a ridiculous-looking dress that’s horn-proof, and the rider has his feet in steel stirrups. Ideally the rider will stab the bull twice in the back with his spear, starting the process of spilling blood and weakening the bull. Then some of the helpers grab little, colorful spears and run straight at the bull, veering at the last second to stick them into the same spot on the bull’s back. At this point the bull ideally has eight colored sticks hanging out of his back, his red blood is visible on his black skin, and the torero steps out with his small, red cape and sword.


This is the subject of the common pictures of bullfights. The torero with his tight, heavily decorated suit stands with his red cape off to the side, twisting his body around as the bull runs at the cape. Ideally it’s a very calm process and the torero has the bull transfixed and his every move controlled by the red cape. Interestingly enough, bulls are actually colorblind, but they’re attracted to the movement of the cape as the torero stands still beside it. After tiring the bleeding bull out still more with a series of these passes, the torero will ideally stick his sword into the perfect spot on the bull’s back so it reaches his heart. The helpers come out and confuse him with their capes and the bull, exhausted and bleeding, falls within a few minutes. The torero holds up his arms to the audience’s applause and one of the helpers takes a knife and sticks it into the bull’s brain to finish him off for good. If the judge says the torero has done especially well, someone comes out and cuts the ears off the bull (and/or the tail), and gives them to the fighter.


During my particular fight no ears or tails were awarded and most of the swords weren’t stuck in at that perfect spot or far enough in, so the bulls had to walk around the ring suffering for awhile before they fell. The last bull fell eventually with the sword half hanging out of his back, but when the helper went in for the final kill, the bull jumped back up again. One of the bulls was so angry at the helpers antagonizing him with their capes from behind the wall that he made a run at the wall and broke a piece of molding, sending it high into the air. The last bull succeeded in running the horse and rider with the spear up against the wall and toppling them over, so while a team of eight men in berets and red polo shirts tried to get the horse on his feet again, the helpers tried to keep the bull’s mind off the completely powerless horse. They blindfold the horses because they would freak out if they saw a bull running at them, but the horse gets freaked out anyway and backs up even though he can’t see the bull. The last torero, from France, was actually crazy, and he met the bull at the gate. He got down on his knees facing the gate, and as the bull ran into the ring he flipped his cape up over his head so the bull ran around him instead of straight into him. This torero also put in all of the little spears in by himself, doing a little ballet with each set as the music cheered him on. He was cocky but the audience loved him as he ran around without a cape, pushing the bull away with his hands.

As you can probably tell, bullfights are a guy’s sport. Esteban went with his polo shirt and sunflower seeds, and I went like a Spanish woman, with makeup, high heels, and a skirt. And when it started getting boring or gory or the sun, heat, and flies got too intense, I pulled out my fan and started fanning myself impatiently. From the movement around the rest of the ring, it seemed that most women were doing the same. What would a traditional Spanish bullfight be without traditional Spanish machismo?

a new meaning of calor

No puedo creer el calor que hace en Sevilla.

It’s a heat unlike any other. A wet heat, gentle heat, a heat that gets into every part of the city and stays there, pounding and pushing night and day. The closest Seville gets to air conditioning, except in some of the more modern clothing stores, are the skinny streets that are almost always shaded, the cool tile patios, and the rickety standing fan which is the newest addition to my room (and incidentally my new best friend). In the last few days I have gotten used to being perpetually wet and sticky; leaving for class after having taken a shower and dried myself off and arriving 30 minutes later, drenched. My nights are spent tossing and turning, the only relief from the stuffy heat is my window which lets no breezes through, only bugs. My ventilador helped last night, but it’s been a little while since I’ve been used to sleeping with a fan.

My señora just told me to close my window because in Sevilla, when the sun starts peeking through the tall blocks of apartment buildings, it’s time to salvage whatever coolness might remain in the house and wait to open the window again until the sun goes away. I’m starting to think that siesta is necessary, even though it’s extremely counter-productive and irritating. A few months ago the Spanish sun was a welcome sight because it meant I might not have to wear my warmest coat when I left my ice box house. Now it means all the Americans are wearing their mini skirts and flip flops and all the Spanish woman are wearing short sleeves and sandals instead of scarves and knee-high boots.

I had to laugh last night during my fourth hour of insomnia when I was looking at the estimated temperature list for July in my Let’s Go Europe book. Copenhagen: 69. Berlin: 73. Budapest: 79. Madrid: 90. In Seville, well, I think it gets worse than that. According to my señora, May is the unpredictable month, June is starts getting hotter, but July and August are the months where the heat is the worst. I will thankfully be safely at home by the ocean, readjusting from the nine-hour time difference, getting re-spoiled on the temperate weather of So Cal, and trying to purify my body after living on the Spanish diet of ham, oil, bread, and red wine for six months.

I think I’ll survive, especially since I’ll be traveling for two weeks around Italy and Greece. According to Let’s Go, Rome and Athens only get to 83 and 89 respectively in July. The two hottest cities in Europe after Madrid…

hasta la muerte

Sevilla F.C. won the UEFA Cup on Wednesday night. On Thursday night the players and the cup itself arrived home to a city literally beside itself with happiness. The fans were out in the thousands as the team’s double-decker party bus made its way at snail’s pace from the airport, to the cathedral (only in Spain would they present their soccer cup to the Virgin), to the government building, and to the stadium. The beautiful part about it was that it was truly a citywide celebration, except for the loyal fans to the city’s other team Betis. Teenagers drinking Cruzcampo united with old men sweating through their collared shirts, their wives, little girls and boys with red and white soccer jerseys, boys on motos honking, women in cars honking, groups of boys screaming and cheering and waving huge red flags. Perhaps more so than Feria and Semana Santa, this celebration was open and welcoming to soccer fans of all shapes, sizes, ages, and colors.

I waited in the big plaza by the government building and watched as the fans waved their flags and scarves, jumped around, set off fireworks, screamed, sang, and chanted for hours and hours as they waited for the bus and the cup to arrive. It finally arrived at 1:30 a.m., about three and a half hours after it was supposed to have arrived at the airport, and though no one could see anything because the crowd was so big, everyone took their Sevilla scarves in two hands, held them high in the air, and sang the Sevilla theme song while swaying in time to the music. “Sevilla, Sevilla, Sevilla… Soy sevillista hasta la muerte (I’ll be a Seville fan until my death)” When the city’s mayor spoke to congratulate the team, his voice was drowned out by the chanting and cheers of the crowd. When the president of the club and they players got on the microphone to speak through the second story windows of the government building, the plaza went completely silent. Sevilla F.C.’s been around for 100 years, and I don’t believe they’ve won until now. I was there to watch the celebration.

¡GOL!

Spanish media: 1
Lindsey: 1

I officially book ended my language acquisition today with a nice question-and-answer session for another heavily made up, microphone-wielding woman. This time I was walking back from the shopping area, and this time I saw the woman with her microphone and camera man before they cornered me, so I was prepared. There’s a big book fair going on this week, so her questions were about books, and fortunately I’m well-versed in words and in Spanish literature. Unlike last time, my Spanish came out fairly clearly and normally, and I only had to ask her to repeat her question once.
(roughly translated from Spanish)
What’s the last book you read?
El cuatro de atrás by Carmen Martín Gaite.
What’s it about?
It’s a weird story about the autobiography of the author with some elements of mystery, like a man dressed in black.
Where are you from?
The United States.
Do you think people in Spain or in the U.S. read more?
I think people here read more.
(turns to the camera, which I was avoiding by looking at her): Did you hear that listeners!? She thinks you read more than people in the United States do! (turns to me): Do you have something to say to the Spanish public about how they should read more?Well, reading is very important. Read more!
The women and her entourage giggled a little, smiled at me, said thank you, very good and moved on.
As much as I deserve a point for that performance, I hope that it doesn’t appear on television.

I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve been thinking lately that I’m getting more comfortable with Spanish. I have learned quite a few new words, colloquial sayings, and “um” noises to fill the spaces in my sentences, and though my accent is far from perfect, it’s passable, and though I talk painfully slow, it’s ok, because normally people don’t have to squish up their faces in order to understand me. I think it depends on my confidence level, but today already I’ve had several exchanges in Spanish that weren’t premeditated and they all went just fine. I think my shame is pretty much gone when it comes to talking by now because I live here, I feel like I’ve been studying Spanish for a million years, I can read whole novels in Spanish, and my command really is good enough that I shouldn’t be intimidated to talk when I want to. I’m still a foreigner, but if I hold my head up high and accept that, then I can get along just fine. And though I’m looking forward to returning to a land where I know the cultural norms and the language 100%, I’m definitely going to miss the adventure and excitement that comes with doing mostly everything in Spanish.

futbol fun and no sleep

Last night Sevilla Futbol Club played Middlesbrough in the UEFA Cup in Holland, which happens to be the second best futbol cup in Europe. It actually wasn't necessary to watch the game or even read the newspaper to see who won: everytime Sevilla scored (four times), the city erupted in collective cheer from every corner and the cars honked the Sevilla FC win tune. When they finally won, well, the screams, fireworks, and horns went on all night and have continued into today because the cup and the players are, as we speak, making their way to the Ayuntamiento government building where there will undoubtedly be more cheering, screaming, and singing. I have never seen anything quite like this, especially since Sevilla has two rivaling futbol teams. But they're all pretty near crazy with their songs, their cheers, their red and white, and their scarves.

my conclusion that was also edited (but not as much)

We could have been anywhere. But were at our home stay in Rabat, Morocco sitting in the comfy patio room with our host family of seven and my American companion was showing the three fascinated brothers of the house his Canon PowerShot SD400 digital camera with 5 megapixels and a 3x digital zoom. The brothers, for their part, were asking all the right questions before all four boys turned back to their heated game of FIFA Soccer 2004 on the family’s Playstation 2. The rest of us were sipping Coca Cola with an Arabic label because we had been told not to drink the water, speaking in bits of English, Spanish, French, and Moroccan Arabic to get our points across the language barrier.

Day three in Africa, a country we had long since found did not have much in the way of Western toilets, toilet paper, showers, or forks. Not that these comforts are the only symbols of civilization; Sevilla doesn’t have much in the way of toilet paper or warm water either. But what many of the people I met in Rabat did have was technology — internet, e-mail, a cell phone, and at least a basic knowledge of English — all things quite foreign to even my host señora in her first-world country of Spain.

The Canon PowerShot saw admiration during its three-day stay in Morocco, but it also saw many decrepit dwellings, skinny children, and poverty. Western consumer products like technology, as well as Coca Cola and good old American fast food, seem to have preceded real assistance in this and many other third-world countries. Because though cameras, video games, computers, and even McDonalds are nice comforts of modernity, they don’t help a country or its citizens sustain themselves. Indeed, the outsourcing and cheap labor now popular among many Western manufacturers further accentuates the divisions between rich countries and poor; these workers often make less in substandard conditions than a comparable worker would make anywhere else.
The thousands of Senegali and Western Saharan immigrants who have arrived on the shores of the Canary Islands or perished in the ocean getting there in the past few months didn’t risk their lives for technology. Granted, technology is part of life in most first-world countries, but first these immigrants seek the jobs, money, and basic comforts for themselves and their families that are not so easily obtained or available in their home countries. Sirifo Kouyate Sakiliba, an immigrant from Senegal that I had the pleasure of interviewing for más o menos 6, admits that he has bought a car in his twelve years in Spain. But more importantly, he provides for his family here in Spain and sends money back to his family in Senegal so his brothers can attend school.

Many of the Moroccans I spoke with didn’t dream about leaving their home country except to travel, a dream impossible for most holding a Moroccan passport. Many others, though, save up to pay the exorbitant prices to get a ticket across the straight to Spain or position themselves around the barbed-wire and high fences separating Ceuta, a colony of Spain, from the rest of Morocco, in hopes of making it over. A few immigrants, like those featured in this magazine, make it across the sea or over the fences, but Spain only has so many jobs to give them.

Those of us lucky enough to hold passports from first-world countries have the luxury to move freely around the world, and the goods that our companies produce follow. As seen from the hundreds still dying in the seas each day trying to immigrate to a better life, the undernourished, underpaid people of the world still need more than fast food and technology. As holders of golden passports, we all have a responsibility to help; for the staff of más o menos 6, listening, learning, and observing were the first steps. The stories of the immigrants we have talked to here in Spain, those we talked to in Morocco, and of course the images captured by the Canon PowerShot were crucial to a better understanding. A little bit of understanding can go a long way.

my original article for mas o menos that was severely edited: my version so it can be published SOMEWHERE

Estaba sentándose a la hora de la merienda sorbiendo un café como un español y como normal porque ya ha llevado doce años en España. Aunque lo ha hecho un hábito, todavía Sirifo Konyate recuerda que solamente los blancos beben el café por la tarde en Senegal, su país de nacimiento. Un puente entre culturas en su vida y también en sus trabajos como mediador intercultural y músico, lo que era reflectado en sus ojos no fue su lucha con inmigración, sino el futuro de su niño multirracial que nació aquí en Sevilla.

Aún su músico ha ayudado en sentirse más cómodo en España, Sirifo dijo lo que ha motivado en aceptar la cultura española fue el nacimiento de su hijo. “Él es de aquí, su madre es de aquí, pero ¿Dónde busca su referencia? No hay muchos negros en la calle; yo mismo soy su referencia. Me quedaré y lucharé hasta que me canse.”

Sirifo tuvo la oportunidad de venir a España para una gira de su grupo de música. Vino doce años pasados, se quedó, se casó y ahora tiene los medios para ayudar su familia en Senegal. Sirifo paga para todos sus hermanos asistir a colegio privado con suficientes pantalones, comida y bolígrafos. Cuando era niño, iba a escuela pero algunas veces su familia no tenía el dinero para comprar los materiales. En su tiempo libre, aprendía como tocar la kora, un instrumento típico de Malí, de sus familiares músicos. Él nació en Senegal, un país de África occidental, pero su padre es de Malí, y su madre, de Guinea-Bissau — todos estos países en Africa y España forman parte de él.

Efectivamente, Sirifo ha adaptado el nombre español, Pablo, para su nombre musical. Además de facilita relaciones entre la gente, Sirifo cree que su música es un buen ejemplo del enlace entre sus culturas: la de Senegal y África, y la da España. Pero su hijo negro y blanco es el mejor ejemplo de inmigración, de culturización y de los aspectos positivos de inmigración. Sirifo mismo se identifica con todas sus culturas. Dijo, “Creo que no mantenga mi cultura de origen cien por cien y creo que sea negativo mantenerla cien por cien. Tengo que aceptar la cultura española y una mezcla de Senegal y España es mi cultura.”

En realidad, dijo que lo que es importante no es identificar con la bandera de un país, pero formar una conexión con la gente y la humanidad. Sirifo habla cuatro dialectos africanos, español y francés, y su trabajo como mediador cultural tanto como músico y lenguas ha ayudado en formar conexiones aquí.

Es común para los jóvenes Africanos inmigrar a España u otros países en Europa porque, Sirifo dijo, siempre buscan cosas que no tienen allí. En su caso, buscó dinero para pagar para cosas mejores para sus padres y sus hermanos. Pero el parte negativo de esta realidad es si todos los jóvenes están saliendo de Senegal y Africa, nadie excepto los mayores todavía están allí. Por eso, Sirifo cree que Africa está despoblando, y no hay mucha gente joven sobrante para avanzar la cultura y el país.

Aunque ha abrazado todas las culturas en su vida, todavía se siente como extranjero aquí en su nuevo hogar, y en su país de nacimiento también. Después de doce años, ya ha arreglado a su nueva vida y no es difícil sentirse cómodo. Pero al principio, dijo que “era difícil e increíble para mí… pero dejé mi país con el cocimiento que tendría que aprender muchas cosas desconocidas e inesperados como la mirada que hace a un negro.”

Ahora da gracias porque tuvo la suerte para venir a España. Y su nuevo lucha con inmigración es cría su hijo como un español, pero como un Africano también. Sirifo se sirve como su único modelo negro y africano. Pero sus dos padres, Sirifo y su esposa española, se sirven como sus modelos españoles. En realidad, no importa si Sirifo nació aquí o no, sino que ha aceptado y adoptado la cultura española en su vida. Por eso, nos encontró en un café por la tarde, sorbiendo un café.

todo sobre mis madres

I was worried and not very hopeful about my real mother and my Spanish mother meeting. Considering they differ 15 years in age, two feet in height, are culturally completely separate, and do not speak a word of each other’s language, I did not give the encounter much hope. I knew it had to happen, because I did want them to meet each other, and because I wanted my mom to try real Spanish food.

True to her word, my señora fed us an arrozita (affectionately rice, aka paella), with saffron, shrimp, plenty of mussels, and choco (cuttlefish). The afternoon started off rather unusually with my mom and me sitting at the table eating and my señora yelling at a repairman in the kitchen. When she finally sat down, she started yelling at my mom too, I suppose thinking that if she talked louder she would get her point across the language barrier to my mother. My mom reacted by waiting for my translation and trying to answer in Spanish with a good, or a yes, or a no. Once the two got the hang of talking through me, well I think it worked pretty well. Conversation was flowing between me and my señora, and then to my mom, and then through me again. Translation is interesting and I think I did a pretty good job… better than the translators in Morocco who took a whole paragraph in Arabic and boiled it down to one word in English. We got her talking about religion, Semana Santa, and the flamenco dress (gypsy dress, as she calls it) that the family used to own. She pulled out her bag of photos and was showing my mom members of the family and friends, using words and pointing, with my mother understanding every word.

Language is an interesting phenomenon, a great divider and a great unifier. But it doesn’t have to be anything, because even if two women don’t speak a word of the same language, they can still get along.

there's no place like home

I’m sitting here on my bed listening to my señora wash the dishes from lunch and to the strains of her granddaughter playing quietly in the other room. My window is open to let in the breeze and the bird songs, and if I’m lucky, no huge moths or flies will decide to enter. The day is warm, but the apartment is comfortable, an oasis from the blazing heat on the concrete outside. The city is resting from a long week of partying; this afternoon there are no yells from the rides of the fair that was down the street and no smell of churros being fried. Tomorrow, the stores will be open normal hours and everyone will get back to work. Día del trabajador is strategically placed on the first of May and on a Monday, because out of the 30 days this April, approximately ten of them were normal work and school days (and that’s not counting the days my university professors decided not to show up for class). The rest of the days were holidays, weekends, festivals, or fiestas during which the stores were not open and the whole city plus thousands of tourists were out on the town, watching parades, bullfights, riding roller coasters, or simply being Spaniards and spending long hours drinking and eating at cafes.

I feel strangely at home. It’s the atmosphere. It’s the comfort. As my dad said last night, Spain has ceased being a novelty, but after all the homesickness I’ve been feeling in the past few weeks, it’s also become somewhat of a home without my realizing it. I had a long talk with my señora this afternoon about the importance of family, about relationships between parents and kids, about raising kids. The conversation began when I mentioned that I really liked the word “embarazisima,” which was used on T.V. to describe a “very pregnant” woman. We decided that I’m of course way too young to be or to aspire to be embarazisima, but she was three times and it changed her life forever, as kids will do. And though I’ve only known her for four months and I hate when she doesn’t understand me and that she feeds me too much, my señora’s become somewhat of a madre as well. When my mom was here to visit she told her (in Spanish of course), that I’m half Spanish because I have a Spanish mother here in Sevilla. Que suerte tengo.


(that's before I cut my hair)

Feria de Abril

La Sagrada Familia

I saw perhaps the third wonder of my Spanish world today in Barcelona: La Sagrada Familia. It's the child of Antoni Gaudí, a famous Catalunyan architect whose weird curvy buildings are all over the city. He died many years ago, but construction on the unfinished temple has been continued in his absense. It's a huge mess of cranes, statues, and towers, with two of the three fascades finished, one in the late 1800s, and one more recently with weird Fountainhead-like cubist figures of Christ.

So we decided to climb the 300-some stairs to the top of one of the towers. Half of it is this weird, winding staircase, and the other half is an equally skinny staircase with stunning views of the city thousands of feet below. Remind me to never bring my dad. "Get away from the edge!" The whole time we were behind this roudy group of Italians who I originally thought were speaking Catalán... but they kept making jokes and laughing, and they affectionately adopted us into their groupo and talking about California (and talking to us) even though we couldn't understand what they were saying. They invited us to visit Rome which they said is better than Barcelona because there aren't so many stairs... I think I will. But Barcelona is a beautiful city and it's so nice being with an old friend. :-)


(that's after I got my hair cut)